


The Roman Thing

by takadainmate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:26:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takadainmate/pseuds/takadainmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel had died for Dean. He had died for Dean more than once. His future did not look bright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Roman Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Misachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misachan/gifts).



**1\. The Demon**

They crouched low behind the couch, pressed close where there was too little room and too much open space in the room beyond. The electricity had long since been cut off and the house was dark and smelled of damp and rot. The only light Dean had to see by came from the streetlamps outside, half shaded by the tatters of thick curtains. Under Castiel’s feet the carpet was sticky, thick and he did not look down.

Somewhere beyond the room Castiel could smell the pungent, sickly odour of burning oil, could feel its flames even though it had to be some distance away, like needles against his skin.

Dean whispered, “What is that? Is this asshole trying to smoke us out with _incense_?”

“No,” Castiel replied, and in the gloom of the room Castiel saw Dean roll his eyes and frowned, because that was always the response he seemed to elicit. He wondered if he would ever understand why. If he really cared to.

There was a sudden piercing scream, loud and desperate and in agony and then the sound cut off, followed by a thudding above them, like a heavy corpse hitting the floor. They both looked up and Dean grimaced. His sight might be limited in the half-light but it was good enough to make out the dark stain on the ceiling, stretching out into the corners of the room, seeping down the walls. It was wet.

“Cas,” Dean said. “Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

Castiel didn’t know what Dean thought it was, but he had also become familiar with Dean’s habit of stating rhetorical questions. He decided it best to be plain. “That’s blood. Human blood.”

Dean raised his eyebrows at him, his mouth quirking in a way that Castiel had come to learn meant amusement.

“Right,” he said, then all the lightness fell from his expression. “You know what we’re dealing with here?”

“A demon.” Castiel could taste the sulphur, could hear the creature clawing and scratching and writhing within its vessel; a thing that should never have been able to set foot on the earth.

Beside him, Dean nodded. He drew his knife from his belt, his eyes narrowed, looking out into the hallway. There were sigils drawn there in blood that Castiel didn’t think Dean could see. They should have been able to repel Castiel. He should not have been able to be here, crouching beside Dean, and for an instant Castiel considered the possibility that he was no longer an angel; that he had fallen. But he could still hear Heaven, and there was still the fire of his grace suffused within every cell of his vessel, and he could not think where that doubt might have come from. It was not something he could recall ever feeling before, and yet was familiar. This place, Castiel thought, was all wrong. It was twisting his thoughts.

“Cas,” Dean was saying, and Castiel blinked. Dean’s hand was resting on Castiel’s shoulder. “You okay? You kinda zoned out there.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel shook his head. “We must dispatch this demon.”

That was why he was here, after all, he guessed. It was odd because Castiel couldn’t remember coming here, or why he was here with Dean, but there was a demon upstairs and that was enough.

Dean hesitated for a long moment, looking at Castiel curiously, but then he smiled grimly.

“Yeah. Kill the demon. It’s what we do.”

It was true that for almost all the long centuries of Castiel’s life he had fought demonkind in all its incarnations; in great wars spanning universes and in back alleys on earth and in Hell itself, but he had never hunted demons with humans before. Dean had spoken as though it were something they did all the time; as though it were the most natural of things.

Castiel found himself nodding in agreement.

Slowly, silently, they moved towards the hall. Above them there was thud, a muffled scream.

Castiel led, because he was an angel and Dean a human, and Dean was important.

The carpet underfoot turned to wood and Castiel’s shoes clicked noisily with every step he took closer to the staircase. Once, this had been a home; clean and warm and well maintained. Castiel could hear the echoes of happiness here. Now the floorboards were stained red; a path leading up the stairs made of the dead and the dying as they were dragged into a demon’s domain. The walls, once painted a soft blue, were peeling and fading, streaks of yellow sulphur and blood and sigils painted across the surface. This should hurt, Castiel thought as he crept up into the first step. The sigils should have bound him by now, should have dug deep into everything that was angel and _pulled_.

Instead, all Castiel could feel was Dean’s presence at his back, a warm breeze across his face, an uncertainty- an unfamiliar thing- at what he was facing here. Castiel wondered at his uncharacteristic caution, an instinct urging him to stay away, to retreat. But there was another scream, cut off with a choking, gurgling sound. The sound of a human throat being cut, slowly. He would not allow any more humans to die. None deserved this, no matter what many of his brothers believed.

He quickened his steps, mindful of his footsteps, reached the top of the staircase and it was then that the smell hit him. This was a sickening rot, burned flesh, blood and death unlike anything he had smelled since Hell and behind him Dean was wretching.

“Jesus,” he hissed. “Fuck.”

Castiel turned to him in warning. Dean’s arm covered his mouth and nose and his eyes were watering but he nodded, swallowed and let his arm fall, held his knife before him in readiness.

There were three closed doors surrounding them, an upturned table with a smashed vase in one corner. The broken shards had long since been ground into the floor. There was light behind only one of the doors, an orange flickering that could only have been firelight.

Castiel touched his fingers to the door and instantly recoiled, awkwardly stepping back into Dean.

“Dude,” Dean frowned. “What the hell?”

His skin burned, and Castiel closed his hands into fists. His skin burned and the pain of it crawled up his arms, spread across his back, dug into his muscle, burrowing down to the angel that was him.

“What is it?” Dean’s face was half-shadowed and it reminded Castiel of Hell.

“Nothing,” Castiel said. He would recover. It was a spell; a poison to angels to keep them away. Castiel had seen it before. He knew it would take time before it could render him incapacitated. He had time. But the demon would be aware of their presence now.

“It knows we’re here,” Castiel warned. Dean simply nodded.

“Then there’s no point in all this sneaking around.” He flashed a grin at Castiel before turning to the door and kicking it down with his heavy boots.

He marched into the room, fearless and bold and as Castiel followed behind him he thought how Dean would make a fine angel; his confidence, his zealousness, his _arrogance_.

What he saw though stopped him dead, and Castiel watched as all the colour drained from his face, how his grip on the knife in his fingers slackened.

“Ben,” he said.

A child stood before them, a pile of corpses behind him, twisted together, blood running into a pool on the floor, the carpet long since saturated. There was a knife in the child’s hand, a long, silver thing etched with curses, the blade dyed with blood; murder. The stench was incredible, turning even Castiel’s stomach who had seen so much worse and so many dead. This had been going on for months, he was certain.

Dean’s eyes were wide, filled with horror. It was clear he knew the child and Castiel wished he could have spared Dean this; that he could have come here alone and dispatched the demon and never had to see the devastation on Dean’s face.

Two braziers burned at either side of the pile of corpses, ancient bronze things that Castiel could barely look at. This was what he had smelled before; holy oil. The heat and the light of it crawled across Castiel’s skin. This was a very old demon.

There was a body at the demon’s feet, a man who wore a suit and had light coloured hair now, too, stained red. His eyes were wide open and empty. Dean reached his empty hand towards the demon.

“Ben,” he said again. “This isn’t… You’re not…”

“He is a demon,” Castiel reminded Dean. “He is not Ben. You know that.”

Castiel took a step forward, meaning to purge this foul creature and be done with it, but Dean grabbed his arm, holding him back.

“Don’t.”

“The child he was is gone, Dean.” Burned away, months ago. There was nothing human to this creature but the flesh it wore, and even that was pock-marked and sloughing away.

And Castiel could not stay here much longer. The heat of the braziers was beginning to seep into his Grace and it felt like acid, corroding away at his life. There was an itch at the back of his eyeballs.

The demon stood impassively, watching with black, curious eyes, a smile on its face that was a sickening parody of innocence.

Castiel removed Dean’s hand from his arm.

“I will purify him,” he said. Another step closer. Another, and with it closer to both the demon and the fire but the least Castiel could do was to save Dean from having to kill the physical presence of a child he once knew. Castiel ignored the sensation of a thousand nails, knifes, scratching at him. Pain was something Castiel had known before.

He reached out his own hand towards the demon, and the demon did nothing.

Then, Dean called, “ _Cas_ ,” and his voice was so broken, so lost Castiel could do nothing but pause and look back at Dean and in that instant the demon took its chance.

He had been foolish. He had been incautious, over-confident, _distracted_ , and Castiel paid for it in the bite of the demon’s knife across his stomach. It felt hot. Then the knife slid deep into Castiel’s chest and Castiel felt the blade cut through muscle, shattering bone, touched the heart of his vessel, almost like the touch of a demon against his Grace. He was aware, vaguely, that he had cried out, that he had fallen to his knees because his pant legs were heavy, wet.

“ _Shit_ ,” Dean was swearing, then begging, “Ben, _please_ ,” but this was not Ben and the knife dug into Castiel again, into his shoulder, the strength of the demon forcing the knife to cut down as though it were trying to slice him open. Maybe it was.

Castiel tried to fight back, to raise his arm to the demon’s head, but his vision was oddly blurred, tipped sideways, and his arm would not respond, was too weak to even move. The fire, Castiel thought. Holy oil. The scent and the light and the heat of it were weakening him and he hadn’t had the sense to realise it before.

The demon pulled the knife from his body and it was, strangely, a relief. He saw the demon draw back, moving to stab him again and there was glee on its face; rage and joy and hatred all at once.

Then Dean was there, behind the demon, and Castiel heard him say, “I’m sorry,” before he drove his own knife into the demon’s back. Electricity sparked across the demon’s body and it screamed and it yelled and it laughed, then its hands fell to its side and the body crumpled to the floor. Another corpse.

Castiel blinked and Dean was kneeling down to look at what had once been a boy, and when Castiel blinked again Dean was beside him, pressing down against his chest and saying, “Don’t you fucking die, man.”

Somehow, Castiel had ended up lying on the carpet. He could feel the blood seeping into the clothes under him, or perhaps it were his own. His vessel’s. It was hard to tell, these days, where one ended and the other began.

If he’d had the strength, Castiel would have told Dean to put out the braziers. If he’d had the strength he would have healed himself. If he’d had the strength he would have told Dean he was fine.

He could do none of these things, could only watch as Dean tried desperately to stem the flow of blood, to bully him into being whole again. And when Castiel could no longer keep his eyes open he could do nothing as a coldness spread through him, as he began to forget, memories sliding away like water in his hands until there was nothing left. He thought he could hear Dean, thought maybe Dean’s hands were on his face, but then they were gone too.

**2\. His Death**

It was dark on Earth, as it was dark behind Castiel’s eyelids even though he knew he didn’t have them. Shouldn’t have them. Not yet, anyway. It was too soon.

But Dean’s voice was calling him, pleading for him to come and _help, goddammit you fucking angel bastard_. This was too soon too, and Castiel stood for a moment, ignoring for now the fact that he shouldn’t have a body within which to stand, trying to remember where he was and how he’d gotten there. He felt his chest; cotton under his fingers whole and dry. Intact. There was a discomfort in his shoulder, in his stomach, like the ghost of an old wound, but it was fading, and with it memory.

Still, close by, Dean called him.

“This time,” he was saying, “this time we’ll be okay. We’ll both be okay.”

This place smelled of demons; all sulphur and blood and Castiel was certain he’d just come from a similar place but that was not unexpected. He was a soldier. He fought demons. That was his purpose.

It was raining steadily, the ground beneath him saturated with water, thick with mud. Water seeped in through his shoes, soaking his socks and Castiel tried to remember if he had ever felt this before. He had only been to Earth once before, many centuries ago, and that had been dry and brief and he had not been alone. There was a quiet in his head that made Castiel uneasy; the words of his brothers dulled out, quieted, as they only ever were when he was in Hell or other places in between.

Instead, his mind was filled with Dean, and Dean’s voice, and Dean’s anguish.

It was too soon, Castiel knew that, but he went to Dean anyway.

He found him crouched in the mud, his hair plastered to his face, with Sam in his arms. Water-thinned blood slid down the back of Sam’s hand and into the puddle he sat in. It had turned red. There was no life in him and Castiel was sad for it.

This was Cold Oak, where Sam Winchester died.

Dean turned to him then. He was crying, but there was something that might have been hope in his eyes when he saw Castiel.

“Cas,” Dean said, which was not his name, but close enough. “You can help him, right? You can heal him?’ Dean looked at Sam in his arms, soaked through and pale white and heavy. He had been dead some time.

And yet, something made Castiel pause, made him not want to tell Dean that it was not his place. That he couldn’t. That he _mustn’t_. He felt sick, and he felt shame, and thought that these things should be new to him too but weren’t.

Instead, Castiel said, “How do you know me?”

Dean frowned at him. “What? What the fuck does it matter? You have to help Sam!”

“I shouldn’t know you,” Castiel persisted, but he does. He knows Dean, and he knows Sam, and he knows that this isn’t what happened.

“No, yeah, whatever. You’ll get in trouble with your angel bosses, I get that, but this is _Sam_ , Cas.” He was begging, Castiel thought. He was begging for his brother’s life and there was nothing Castiel could do to help him.

“I can’t,” Castiel admitted, and Dean gritted his teeth.

“You can,” Dean said, voice low and dangerous. “I know you can. It can be different this time.”

Castiel was missing something. There was something he had forgotten. Dean shifted his weight, adjusted his grip on Sam to hold tighter.

“This time?”

He looked around them, sensing no one, hearing nothing but the rain around them. It was as though the rest of the world, of the universe had ceased to exist. This was not real, was the only conclusion Castiel could come to. Perhaps it was a test.

“This time,” Dean nodded, as though Castiel should understand now. As though Castiel had agreed to something.

Castiel looked to Sam and in that moment thought, yes, he could set this right. He could bring Sam back and then what came after never would. He could fix everything, himself included. He reached out. Dean’s eyes followed his hand.

Then, Sam’s eyes snapped open and Castiel stepped back in surprise. Sam was blinking up at him accusingly.

“You forgot,” he said.

Castiel knew he had forgotten many things, like how he had come to be here and how he knew that Dean liked beer and pie and dreamed of silence, and that Sam liked research and hated the smell of gun oil and all of this before he had even met either of them.

He nodded.

“You’re here to bring Dean back,” Sam said, and Dean shook his brother and said, “I’m right _here_ , Sam.”

Dean smiled up at Castiel, thanking him for something he had not done, Castiel realised.

“I did not-“ Castiel tried to explain, but Sam cut in, “There isn’t much time, Cas.” He reached around his brother’s jacket, drew a knife from his belt and Castiel remembered Dean doing the same thing in a house that smelled of the dead and holy oil.

Sam stood and Dean tried brushing the mud from his brother’s arms. They were all soaked to the skin and the rain was beginning to fall harder. It was cold. It was very cold.

Sam started to say, “You need to-“ but then stopped, as though something had changed. As though he had seen something behind Castiel. This world was dead, though. It was just the three of them here. Castiel would have been able to tell if there was something there. But then Sam’s face twisted into a pained expression.

“Sam?” Dean asked, taking a step back to look his brother over. “You okay, man?”

There was a grin on Sam’s face when he looked up, and his eyes had clouded over into pitch black. Castiel caught the glint of the blade in Sam’s hand, his fingers tightened around the hilt. Without thought Castiel surged forward, placing himself between Dean and Sam and in the next thing Castiel knew, the knife blade was sinking into his stomach. This was familiar, Castiel thought. Then; this should not kill him, except Castiel could feel his Grace bleeding from his body. He was dizzy. Unbalanced. He fell to the muddy ground and Sam leaned over him. No. Not Sam. The demon. The reason Castiel was here.

“That was easy,” he said. “But, while you’re here, I can think of something even better.”

Dean was staring at his brother in horror.

Castiel heard, “What have you-“ and then nothing.

**3\. Hell**

“They promised me wings,” Dean was saying. There was a sound of metal scraping against metal. There was wood under his back. It was hot and yet somehow Castiel’s hands and feet were cold. Except, he didn’t have hands or feet.

“So anytime you wanna show me them,” Dean went on. “I have some awesome ideas.”

A hand caressed Castiel’s face almost gently, but the touch burned and Castiel turned away. The air was thick with smoke, more sulphur, noxious and stifling and Castiel choked on a respiratory system he didn’t have.

His eyes stung as he opened them. As his vision, cleared Castiel recognised the face of the man watching him.

“Angel tears?” Dean said. “Cute.” He smiled, but it was a cruel thing, unlike any Castiel had seen before. This man, this soul, was a withered, twisted thing and Castiel knew where he was.

“This did not happen,” Castiel said. He was certain of it. No angel would take a vessel to Hell. There were no chains that Dean could possess to hold him, not in this place. And yet, he could not break free from the bindings on his arms and legs.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Nothing’s happened yet. You’re impatient.”

There was a long instrument in his hand like a scalpel and Dean was looking between it and Castiel’s exposed arm.

“Do you feel pain?” Dean asked, moving closer to skin. He pressed the blade against Castiel’s wrist and before it could break the skin Castiel told him, “Yes.”

He was very tired of being cut open. There was the memory of a knife to his stomach, twice. Blood flowing from him. Death.

“This isn’t real, Dean.” He wasn’t entirely certain what it was, but it wasn’t _real_.

Dean’s fist cracked across Castiel’s face, then again, and again, until Castiel was dazed, found it hard to focus when Dean stopped, breathing hard and angry.

“ _Real_ ,” he spat. “I’ll fucking show you real.”

His fingers tightened around Castiel’s throat and Castiel found himself gasping, felt his neck burning where Dean touched him. Here, in this place, Dean was all demon and Castiel wanted to recoil from him. To get away.

There was a strange stinging sensation along his torso, moving down, then across, along the line of his ribs. Dean leaned over him, holding up his scalpel. Its blade was red now and there was wet, fresh blood on Dean’s hands.

“Your blood.” Dean’s eyes were black. Empty. In this place there was no hope. That at least was familiar, how Castiel had found Dean when he’d come for him; his soul a broken, terrible thing. But this _had not happened_.

Dean was saying, “I’m going to skin you alive, angel. I’m going to find those wings.”

“You know me,” Castiel tried. There was pain swelling in his chest. He was bleeding, and Dean was tugging at the edges of his skin.

Dean blinked, peered at him closely. “I don’t know any angels.”

“But you know I am one. How do you know that?”

Just for a moment Dean’s eyes cleared, human and confused and afraid, before turning dark again. He doesn’t reply, turned his attention instead to Castiel’s skin and _pulled_. Castiel could hear the ripping of it, the sloughing of flesh torn from muscle, before he felt it and then there was nothing but the _pain_. It went on for a long time, and endless world narrowed down to the agony of a body that wasn’t even here, wasn’t real. None of it was real, but it was impossible to remember that when every thought was chased away because Dean cut into him, or tore at him, or dug his nails into bleeding flesh. Castiel watched it all, trying to remember, too, that this was not the worst torture he had ever endured. Somehow, that was not a comfort.

The worst of it though was Dean; the delight he took in every slice and tear, the way he smiled every time Castiel cried out in pain. Castiel had no breath to spare to try to stop this, to try to convince Dean that he was not a demon, that he didn’t have to do this.

Before, Castiel had not spoken to the broken soul he had found in Hell. He had been pursued and he was alone and he had known that to be captured there would mean eternal torment. He’d had a mission and he had taken Dean’s soul, even as it fought against him and hissed at the light that was Castiel’s true form. This had not happened. This was not happening.

Somewhere to his right Dean was carefully, painstakingly cutting through the tendons of Castiel’s wrist until it was a shredded useless thing. There was blood on Dean’s hands, all the way up to his elbows. Castiel’s blood.

“Dean,” he tried, his voice a quiet, worn thing. Perhaps he’d screamed, but it was difficult to recall. “Dean.” He was dying, a slow fading as Dean carefully bled him, knowing just how deep to cut, where to split him open that would cause the most pain and keep him alive the longest.

“Don’t worry.” Dean patted his shoulder companionably. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be all nice and put back together again soon.” Dean grinned at him and it was not at all friendly. “And then we can start over.”

There was an unreality to this Hell, though, an impermanence in the way the edges of the room blur, indistinct. Saws and cleavers and claws all caked in red hung from a ceiling that wasn’t there. The screams and cries of the tortured souls were muted, stifled, as though distant; an unwanted sound. Castiel was certain when he died here he would not be returning and he wanted to- needed to- say this now.

“Dean,” he insisted, waited until Dean turned his attention to him again, until Castiel could look into unfamiliar eyes, trying to find anything of the Dean he knew there. There must have been something, Castiel thought, or Dean could never have been reborn. There must have been something human of him remaining that he wasn’t destroyed by Castiel’s touch.

Castiel said, “I forgive you.”

For a time Dean just stared at him, face blank. Around them, Castiel could hear the sounds of Hell drawing closer, like heavy footsteps but instead made up of the laughter of demons and the screams and pleas of humanity. Fires crackled and hissed and it made Castiel think of holy oil, singeing the tips of his wings.

Dean looked around him, his eyes wide as though he didn’t know where he was, and when he turned back to Castiel there was recognition there, just for an instant. An uncertainty. But then it was gone and Dean’s lips pulled back to bare his teeth and there was a rage in his eyes that Castiel had never seen before. It was pure hatred; pure demon.

With a calmness that was close to frightening Dean turned to his table of instruments, picked up a long-bladed knife and presented it to Castiel. The blade looked incredibly sharp and clean, reflecting flames and Dean’s hand and Castiel’s eyes.

“Can you forgive me for this?” Dean asked, and then in one fluid move, shoved down against Castiel’s shoulder with one hand and with the other sliced a deep line across Castiel’s throat. He died choking and coughing and suffocating to the sound of Dean’s laughter.

**4\. The Child**

“Yes,” Castiel said, then frowned, unsure why he had just said that. His hand went to his throat, rubbing at the skin, somehow expecting to find blood there. His fingers came away dry.

“Are you, like, crazy or something?”

The voice was that of a human child standing beside him, and when Castiel turned to look down at the boy he instantly recognised him. Dean.

“I’m not crazy,” Castiel felt it necessary to say, and wondered if he was trying to convince the child or himself.

“Right,” Dean said, sounding deeply skeptical. They were standing in an empty motel parking lot. The reception was empty and Castiel could see no sign of any other guests. They were alone.

In his arms Dean carried an overflowing brown bag filled with, as far as Castiel could see, cereal and milk.

The sun was setting but it was still warm, the sky a clear expanse of orange. It made Castiel think of Hell and he reached to his throat again, an odd itching sensation crawling across his skin. Castiel shook his head.

Dean stared up at Castiel warily, his young face red and burned.

“My dad’ll be back soon, dude,” Dean warned. “He don’t like strangers so you’d better go back to wherever you came from.”

Castiel had known Dean long enough to tell when he was lying.

“Dean,” Castiel said, and Dean’s eyes narrowed. He took a step away. “I mean you no harm.” Castiel raised his hands in supplication.

“How’d you know my name?” Dean was backing up slowly, moving to stand in front of a door marked with the number twelve.

“You know me.” A strange half-forgotten memory surfaced in Castiel’s mind, as though he had said these words before, recently.

“I am unsure what’s happening,” Castiel went on, “But we have known one another for some years. We have fought together. And you are not a child.”

Dean looked down at himself, then back up at Castiel.

“You do seem kinda familiar.” He tilted his head to the side and grinned. “But maybe that’s ‘cause we meet a tonne of weirdos.”

It would seem that Dean had been irreverent and overconfident from a young age.

He drew a key from his pocket, leaned against the door, balancing his bag. His movements were overly casual; he was afraid of Castiel and Castiel had no idea how to convince him. This young Dean had no reason to trust him, even less to believe him.

“Get lost, man,” Dean said. “Now.”

Dean was unlocking the door, pushing it open. There was a line of salt across the threshold and Dean stepped over it carefully. He was reaching inside, to a weapon of some kind, Castiel suspected and kept his hands outstretched.

Then, an even younger face appeared at the door and Castiel recognised him too. Sam.

“Get back inside, Sammy,” Dean ordered urgently, but Sam just waved and greeted him, “Cas!”

Castiel let his arms fall to his side. “You know me.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “And you’re doing a piss poor job of getting Dean out of here.”

Dean smacked his brother around the head. “Language,” he reproved and Sam scowled at him.

“Whatever, Dean.” Sam turned back to Castiel. “You’ve forgotten,” Sam said, “where you are.”

“I have,” Castiel agreed.

Still stood in the doorway, reaching towards whatever concealed weapon he had hidden there, Dean straightened up, looking between Sam and Castiel. “You know this guy?”

“Yes.” Sam waved Dean away. “Now come inside.” Sam looked to the sky. “It’s getting dark, and that’s gonna be when everything goes to hell.”

“Sam,” Dean snapped, trying to push his brother back inside and it was strange, Castiel thought, for Sam to be so much smaller than Dean.

“He’ll help us.” Sam shoved Dean out of the way, further into the room. Castiel followed cautiously. “He’s gonna save us. This is Cas, Dean. You _know_ him.”

Inside, the room smelled of mold and sweat, unpleasant and airless. It was dark, shadowed where the sun was setting and there were no lights switched on, streaks of red bleeding in through the window. Dean stood, eyes watching Castiel suspiciously, his eyes dark and serious and too old for a child. A shotgun was gripped tightly in one hand but the barrel was pointed down towards the ground. He handed his bag on groceries over to Sam who put them on the table in the centre of the room.

A shotgun should mean nothing to him, should barely register as a threat, and yet somehow Castiel was certain here, wherever they were, it would kill him.

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean. “Put that down. I told you, this is _Cas_.” As though his name was all Dean needed to be certain. To be able to trust him. “We don’t have much time,” Sam said.

“Until what?” Dean demanded to know, and it was then that Castiel smelled them.

“Demons,” Castiel growled. He looked urgently around the room, feeling out its defenses. There were lines of salt over all the entrances, but they were weak. They wouldn’t hold for long. He tried to spread his wings, meaning to get Sam and Dean out of here but they would not unfold, as though there was nowhere to go. No escape that way.

Castiel moved to the sink, began filling a bucket with water.

“There are demons, too?” Dean had come to stand beside him, watching what Castiel was doing. The hostility was not entirely gone from his eyes, but the grip on his shotgun had loosened.

“Yes,” Castiel said. “There are demons close by. I can only assume they are coming here. I will require your assistance. Gather all the ammunition you have.” Dean obeyed, and Castiel lamented how adult Dean never acquiesced so easily. “Sam.” Sam was looking out of the window, nose pressed up against the glass. “Come away from there.”

Sam blinked at Castiel. “This didn’t happen,” he said. “There weren’t any demons.”

Castiel paused. “This is a memory.”

“Yeah. No. It’s all wrong.”

Before he could say anything further there was a hammering at the door. Castiel had not realised the demons were so close. No, he thought. They hadn’t been.

He dragged the bucket from the sink, motioned for Sam to move behind him, handed the bucket over to him.

“Holy water,” he explained and Sam nodded, struggling with the weight of it.

Dean was at Castiel’s side, shotgun raised, aimed at the door.

“Which is the most defensible room?” Castiel asked.

“Sammy’s room. No windows.”

“No escape,” Castiel pointed out.

“Better than being overrun from all sides.”

Castiel nodded in agreement and they backed up. Sam had clung to the back of Castiel’s coat, hiding behind him.

“It’s the demon,” Sam said. “It’s gotta be. You have to kill him, Cas.”

It wasn’t entirely clear what Sam meant, but regardless, Castiel would not allow any demon to live if he could help it. He would not let them hurt Dean and Sam. “I shall endeavour to do so.”

“Dean?” a voice bellowed from the other side of the door.

“Dad?” Dean said, his gun lowering. Then louder, “Dad?”

“Let me in,” John Winchester ordered and Dean moved to obey. Castiel held him back.

“No, Dean.”

There were no humans outside the door, nothing that was not demon.

The sunlight was almost gone now.

“Dad’s out there,” Dean protested, shoving Castiel’s hand away. “We gotta let him in.”

“It is not your father, Dean,” Castiel argued.

“Dean,” the demon with John Winchester’s voice roared. The hammering was violent enough that the door frame shook, the wood of the door splintering inwards.

“No human has that strength,” Castiel reasoned. He held Dean’s glare and was glad when the boy backed down, moving back to Castiel’s side even as he swore under his breath.

There were more approaching; the stench of their hate and bloodlust strong enough that Castiel was almost certain there were too many of them to come out of this alive. They would be overrun. But this was Sam and Dean, and they were children, and Castiel would fight until his strength had been completely exhausted nonetheless.

The window in the kitchen smashed and a man with matted blond hair and wet black eyes crawled inside, ignoring the glass that cut into his skin. Castiel was on him before he had even made it entirely into the room, pressing the palm of his hand against the man’s head and _pushing_ , burning through the demon. It howled and kicked, scratching at Castiel’s wrists before it was dead. Castiel shoved the corpse back through the window. Outside, he could see at least eight demons moving quickly across the deserted parking lot towards them.

“Cas!” Sam cried, and Castiel retreated quickly to where the brothers stood just as the front door caved in, smashed to pieces. Castiel stood in front of the boys defensively, ignored the way Dean tried to shove him out of the way.

Through the ruined doorway stood John Winchester, eyes black as coal.

“Dad?” Dean had the sense to stay back, to be wary, not lowering his weapon for an instant.

The demon that was John Winchester bared its teeth. “Put the gun down, Dean,” it snapped. “That’s an order.”

Castiel did not have to tell Dean to ignore the command.

Two more demons were clearing the corpse from the window. They didn’t have long.

Coming to a decision, Castiel took the bucket from Sam and threw its contents over John Winchester. He screamed, clawed at his face, and Dean took an aborted step towards his father before reeling back. Castiel pushed both boys into the room, closing and barring the door behind him. That would buy them another few minutes. He looked around the small room, trying to think of a means of escape, or some way to dispel the demons.

“That wasn’t dad,” Dean said. He was staring at the closed door, listening to the demon howl in pain and fury. He jumped when a heavy fist founded against the bedroom door.

“That is not your father,” Castiel confirmed, putting an arm around the boy’s shoulders as he’d seen adults often do to children, drawing his attention away from the door.

The voice of John Winchester yelled, “Open this fucking door, Dean!”

There was a ducting vent low in the wall, half-hidden by the bed. Castiel pushed the bed away, crouched down and ripped away the grill. Crumbling plaster came away with the metal.

“You can escape through here.” Castiel reached for Sam first, but the boy did not move.

“You won’t fit,” Sam said.

“No,” Castiel agreed. “I will hold them off.”

There were, Castiel noticed, tears in Sam’s eyes. He sniffed, rubbed at his eyes.

“You can’t get out of here if you don’t kill that demon,” Sam pleaded. “We can help.”

Castiel frowned. “Where are we, Sam?”

Sam opened his mouth to answer but then, without warning, the door burst open and John Winchester charged into the room, heading straight for Dean. There was a gun in one hand, a machete in the other. He raised the gun towards Sam and Castiel grabbed for the boy, spun him around just as the demon pulled the trigger. Castiel felt the bullet rip into his lower back, just below his ribs. Then another, higher. Sam was shaking in his arms.

“Get out of-“ Castiel grimaced as another bullet pierced his skin, burying itself deep in his flesh. He was certain he could feel its sting, like a razor blade in his chest, every time he breathed. He pushed Sam towards the vent in the wall and turned back to see Dean tripping backwards over his own feet in an effort to get away from his father. His shotgun was raised but he didn’t fire. John Winchester’s eyes were wild, red burns streaked across his face, his expression vengeful and hungry as he slashed at Dean with the machete. Castiel yanked Dean away, pulling hard enough that Dean was thrown backwards into the wall.

“Take Sam and go!” Castiel yelled. There were two more demons pressing into the already crowded room, more outside. A shot went off and John Winchester was momentarily knocked off his feet. Castiel looked back at Dean, blinking in shock at what he’d just done. Castiel nodded at him in thanks and took the chance he’d been given, reaching his palm out towards John Winchester.

Behind him, Sam was saying, “Come on, Dean.”

Castiel only managed a glancing touch before the other demons were upon him. He was too slow. Every movement hurt, every breath. He managed to dodge the slice of the knife one of the demons carried, what had once been an old lady wearing a floral patterned apron and bright red lipstick. Castiel lashed out, threw the old lady demon to the ground but not before a second had caught Castiel across the cheek with its fist.

John Winchester pushed the old lady aside, raised his gun again, grinned, “Nowhere to go, angel. You can’t win this game.”

Recklessly, Castiel glanced behind him and both Winchester brothers had squeezed themselves in the vent, were pushing themselves backwards deeper into the wall, He could only hope they had time to escape. He wished he was stronger; faster; as righteous and absolute as he’d once been, before Earth and the Winchesters and all the betrayal and the doubt. Then these demons would be nothing to him.

A shot sounded, somehow loud in the room even though there was chaos around him; shouting and scrabbling and demons clawing at the walls, and Castiel knew this would kill him. A bullet to the head, and Castiel was dead.

**5\. The Angel**

Demons were nothing to him. They were abominations to be utterly destroyed without pity or mercy or even thought. They were worth none of these things. Castiel had been born knowing this, as he had been born knowing that his purpose was to fight and to serve. He was one of the host; one amongst a thousand thousand angels and it was not his place to question. And yet, beside him stood a human, and Castiel couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing there.

They stood on the planes between Heaven and Hell, going to war. None of his brothers around him seemed at all concerned by the human’s presence.

And then the human spoke.

“Awesome look, Cas. You’re really rocking the Roman soldier thing.”

His words made no sense to Castiel.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Castiel said. No human would survive this fight. It was unlikely an angel would either.

“Yeah. I’m getting that impression.”

The human looked around him, to the blue sky above them and the red ground beneath them. Before, Castiel had always thought humans small, fearful things, but this one grinned at Castiel, walked casually beside him as though they were comrades who had fought together for centuries. It was, strangely, familiar. Perhaps, Castiel considered, in the future he will know this human and they will be friends.

Against his better judgment Castiel asked, “How are you here?”

The human shrugged. “Dunno.” He looked at Castiel. “But I know you. Cas. Castiel. Angel guy. Helped me out a few times. Screwed me over a few times. Sound familiar?”

“I do not _screw_ humans over.” The word was distasteful, let alone the sentiment.

There was a strange chill in the air, the taste of ash, though Castiel could neither feel temperature nor taste. Though this place- that was not really a place at all- had no air. The world around them was solidifying. Becoming a physical thing.

Beside him, hands shoved deep into a worn green jacket, the human laughed.

“Never thought I’d hear you cuss, man.”

Castiel stared back at the human in confusion, and the human laughed even harder.

Humans never had made any sense to Castiel. He turned away, turning back to the path ahead of him. Not far ahead it narrowed, great cliffs rising up on either side, rock faces that could hide a thousand demons; the perfect place for an ambush. Castiel raised his sword.

It had seemed, when he set out from Heaven, that there were thousands of angels marching out to this battle. Now, looking before him, it seemed like only hundreds.

“So,” the man said. “Where we headed?”

“Hell,” Castiel told him, and the human shivered, his face suddenly pale.

“Yeah, no, not going back there,” he said, and Castiel looked at him sharply. He did not smell like a demon; there was none of the clinging despair or rage or maliciousness that always tainted those creatures. Instead, this human’s soul- even as corrupted as human souls always were- was filled with hope and courage and loyalty. Despite his words, the human continued to walk beside Castiel.

As the path thinned, they were pressed closer together, the other angels around them striding with purpose, untroubled. Castiel was troubled. Some part of him, some instinct, told Castiel that this soul was important, that he needed to be _saved_. And he was an angel, and at times could see his past and his future and his present all at once, twisted together so that Castiel was both young and naïve and old and broken apart. If he thought on it for too long Castiel found that he feared what was to come. But there was this, too; this soul he recognised, bound up with his future and tied to his fate. Castiel knew it was one he would choose, too.

“You can turn back,” Castiel said. Behind them, now, there were only five rows of angels where before there had been hundreds. Castiel pointed back up the path, the way they had come, though a mist has fallen over it so that it seemed as though it had disappeared. “The road will lead you to Heaven.”

At least, Castiel thought it would. He did not like the mist. He was not certain he would trust the safety of the human in it.

The man snorted. “Heard that one before.” He clapped a hand against Castiel’s shoulder. “I’m coming with you.”

“I can’t allow you-“ and when Castiel turned back to the path ahead of them they were alone. He stopped. It was silent now, where before there had been the steady march of an army of angels. The sound of the human’s heavy footfalls echoed around them.

“We’re alone,” Castiel said, and his voice echoed too. The high cliffs on either side of them seemed to reach upwards forever, never ending. A sun that should not have existed was setting, casting them into shadow.

“We always were.” The human raised an eyebrow at Castiel.

In his life, long by a human’s standards, short by an angel’s, Castiel had seen many things. He had seen the brightest stars and the darkest depths of war, he had known magic and read the ancient stories, but never had he been set apart, solitary; _alone_. He heard only himself, his own thoughts; singular, his brothers gone and Castiel was suddenly afraid.

“Where did they go?” Castiel looked around him, desperate, an unfamiliar sense of panic rising in his chest. He saw only bare, red rock and the human.

“This started when you arrived here,” Castiel accused. He had no magic, no power that Castiel could discern, but there had to be _something_. Raising his sword again, Castiel crowded the man back against the rock face, pressed the sharp silver blade to his neck. “What did you do?”

“Wait, Cas,” the man said, raising his hands in surrender, lifting his chin in an attempt to remove him throat from the shape edge. “Dude. It was only the two of us. It’s only been the two of us this whole time.”

And somehow, inexplicably, Castiel was certain he was telling the truth.

He drew the blade away and stood back, trying to work out _why_ he trusted him.

Then, there was a sudden high-pitched shriek and Castiel knew with as much certainty that he trusted this human that they were surrounded by demons.

“I feel like this happens a lot,” the man said. There was a knife in his hand, a bitter, blood-soaked thing that Castiel did not like to look at. But it would kill demons.

“You can fight.”

Castiel had heard, in the stories of those angels that went to Earth, of humans who fought demons. Castiel had always listened, fascinated. Now he had met one of them for himself, and he was not entirely convinced that the stories he’d heard were not greatly exaggerated.

“I can fight, yeah,” the human said defensively, and maneuvered so that he had his back to Castiel. “Been doing this all my life.”

There was no time to argue the point then because demons, withered and blackened, skin like gnarled, burned corpses, crawled out from the rock face. Their eyes were sunken and empty. They reeked of every vile thing Castiel had ever encountered. The human at his back said, “That is just gross. Is that what you always see?” as though a demon could ever look like anything else.

“Yes,” he said anyway.

A demon, an old one Castiel guessed from the rotted pitting of its skin, hissed at Castiel, creeping low and close. There were at least three more in front of him, and four facing the human. More hid in the rocks; they _infested_ this place. But Castiel had killed hundreds of demons in a single day. He would not tire. He would not be defeated. He would see the human safe, and himself too.

The old demon attacked, snarling and spitting and Castiel felt the lash of its poison tongue on his cheek, threw the creature away from him and another grabbed onto his neck, biting down on his shoulder. Castiel cut the demon’s head from its neck in one slash, did the same to another that launched itself at Castiel’s arm. He crushed another under his foot, ignoring its scream as its skull caved in. Another attacked and Castiel swung and sliced and another and Castiel ducked low and rammed his sword deep into its stomach, splitting it open. The blade cut through demon as though they were paper.

Then, Castiel heard a cry that was not from a demon. Human.

He turned, giving one creature the opportunity to tear a long line down his back with its claws, but Castiel took no notice of the pain; he stabbed the creature, his attention focused on finding the man.

There were three demons on him, one hitting him across the head with a rock, another had his knife and was slicing lines, crisscrossed over his chest. The last had bitten into the human’s ankle and was pulling. Castiel heard the crack of broken bone and set upon the creatures in fury. It was a fury Castiel had never felt before, new and enraged and unlike anything he had felt in war. He looked at the bleeding human and in that instant knew he would do almost anything to preserve that life. Anything to save him. But all Castiel could do was tear the demons apart, breaking their bodies against the stone with a ferocity that Castiel had not known he could possess.

When they were dead and gone and ripped apart, and their black blood stained Castiel’s hands and the walls around them, Castiel knelt beside the human. There was a spark of life left in his eyes and nothing more. He would die, and it was Castiel’s fault. He put his hands on the human’s face.

“I can save you,” Castiel said.

The human shook his head, gasped at the movement in pain, and Castiel channeled his Grace into him, soothing him. The man breathed more easily.

“I can save you,” Castiel said again. “Let me.”

Unexpectedly, the man smiled. Bright red blood stained his teeth and his lips and there was no time. More demons were crawling out from the rock face, edging closer. Then the human said, “Whatever, Cas,” and Castiel took it as agreement.

He poured himself into the human, filling every inch of him, every memory and muscle and thought. This was Dean Winchester, Castiel’s friend, and Castiel could not imagine how he had ever forgotten that. His soul was the most familiar thing in all of creation, and it was _easy_ to knit his torn flesh back together, to fix bone and muscle and replace blood. Castiel had done it before.

In that moment, too, Castiel remembered where he was. Why he was here.

“Sam called you,” Dean said, somewhere in his head, and he made it sound like an accusation.

“You wouldn’t wake up.”

Dean was unconvinced. “It’s just a nightmare.”

“No,” Castiel told him. “It’s not.”

His eyes- their eyes- snapped open just as the demons had come close enough to touch and Castiel reached out with all his Grace and strength and power. And his anger too, because these demons had tried to take Dean. They had tried to kill him in his sleep with the horror of his own nightmares; memories turned wrong and twisted and tainted with despair. Castiel had asked for the strength to save him, and he had found it in his younger self, here, in this valley where only a handful of his garrison had survived against the hordes of Hell. 

He took Dean's form and he stood. He did not need to fight the demons because this was Castiel's memory and here he snuffed them out with a thought, not casting them back to Hell but annihilating their very existence. They would never return. They were nothing.

Then, when they were all gone and their wails and screams had been silenced, when they were gone from their mind, Castiel came to Dean's memories and put them back together as they had been. As Dean wanted them to be. He worked quickly, not prying into Dean's mind beyond the damage he was repairing.

"It's not like you haven't seen all this crap before," Dean said, and there was amusement there. Not hostility, as Castiel might have expected. "I don't really care, y'know. If you see this stuff."

Which was news to Castiel.

"I had assumed," he said carefully. "You would want me to leave as soon as possible."

Dean shrugged, and grinned, and looked Castiel over. He said, "You really do rock the Roman thing," and for the first time Castiel realised that this was Dean's image of him; how he saw Castiel in Heaven; a warrior in bronze armour. 

"In truth," Castiel said, "I look nothing like this."

"Yeah, I guessed so. Just be glad I didn't give you rainbow wings." 

Castiel stared at Dean, and in this place- in Dean's mind- there was no way Dean could miss exactly how unimpressed he was. Dean just grinned. 

"C'mon," he said. "Sam is gonna be waiting for us."

It had been seventeen hours and thirty six minutes since Castiel had fallen into Dean's dreams in an attempt to find him, and Castiel was sure that Sam had to be on the verge of doing something drastic by now so he nodded, began to withdraw. At the last touch of Castiel's consciousness, Dean stopped him, considering, remembering, and said, "Thanks."

"I would do this gladly," Castiel told him, "And more," and then they were separate, singular again, but maybe not so alone.

**END**


End file.
